Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology

Interview

“How Molecular Ecologists Work” is an interview series that asks successful scientists to share their experiences in the field and their tips for getting science done effectively. This is my second year running this interview series for The Molecular Ecologist blog, and I’ve recently posted the release schedule. There will one interview per week from now until the end of January, so peek in when you can to read what these scientists from all over the world do from day-to-day.

Our next guest for the How We Work series is Dr. Tyler Smith. Tyler is currently a research scientist for the Canadian government, but we first me while he was a faculty member in the department of biology at Eastern Kentucky University. Prepped and ready for sedge hunting in turkey season Location: Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Ottawa, Canada Current Position: Research Scientist, Taxonomy of native crop wild relatives One word that best describes how you work: Inertia would work. Reactive would be accurate too much of the time as well. I aspire to be a more mindful and deliberate […]

Throughout my travels around academia, I’ve always been very interested in how other scientists work. Scientists in particular make for a great study of working habits for two main reasons: they typically juggle a variety of tasks and they largely determine their own work schedules. This results in a huge variety of work habits: night owls, early birds, multitaskers, focus-taskers, and on and on. I’ve been a long-time reader of Lifehacker’s “How I Work” series, an interview format in which folks from various organizations detail the secrets behind their work habits. I’ve always loved this idea: getting a peak into […]

With this post, I’m continuing the “Get to Know a Grad Student” series, an effort to showcase the lives of real scientists. After interviewing a few graduate students, I thought it would be nice to hear from someone who has crossed the PhD boundary into the wild blue yonder. Dr. Ana Jimenez is a post-doctoral researcher in Dr. Joe Williams’ lab here in the Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology Department at Ohio State. Ana has been my teacher and biggest supporter in the impossible task of getting salamander cells to grow in the lab. She is also my designated dog […]

The SciFund challenge, a crowd funding experiment for science, is once again going strong this year. Since this blog started with my own SciFund campaign, it is only fitting that I use it to promote some of the fascinating research done by other students.This funding cycle, there are three other students in my department at Ohio State who are sharing their science with the world and looking for members of the public to participate with them. One of these students in Jenn Hellman. Jenn looking for fish in all the wrong places. Jenn’s research centers around social networks in animals. […]

Cool news! I got to talk about our salamander research on this week’s episode of Weekly Wienersmith, a really neat podcast about science. You can listen online or download here. The episode features the work of Dr. Ryan Earley at the University of Alabama. I got to meet Dr. Earley when he came to give a seminar at Ohio State in the winter, and he is one cool scientist. Check out his webpage for some fascinating research on the mangrove rivulus. Zach and Kelly are super nice and fun to talk to, so go to their webpage and give […]